US President Barack Obama on Wednesday fired his top Afghanistan commander over inflammatory comments that angered the White House and threatened to undermine the war effort.
Mr Obama relieved Gen. Stanley McChrystal of his command after a private, 30-minute meeting at the White House and named Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the US Central Command, to replace him, a senior administration official said. Gen. McChrystal had been summoned by Mr Obama to explain remarks he and his aides made in a magazine article that disparaged Mr Obama and other senior civilian leaders. The situation posed a dilemma for Mr Obama. If Gen. McChrystal had kept his job, the President could have been seen as tolerating insubordination from the military. But by firing him, Mr Obama is shaking up the chain of command at a perilous moment in the unpopular nine-year-old war.
Gen. McChrystal first met defence secretary Robert Gates at the Pentagon before entering the White House for a one-on-one with Mr Obama. —Reuters